Use of Teleworking as an Example ICT for Sustainable Development

Question: You are an employee of a large organisation based in Sydney. By introducing teleworking in the organisation, your supervisor plans to contribute to sustainable development and has asked you to research about teleworking. You are to write a report to be presented at the next executive meeting. The report should include: Teleworking and its challenges to the organisation and the teleworkers. You should consider the social, economic, ethical and legal factors. A critical review whether teleworking would really reduce nett greenhouse gas emissions as widely believed. Answer: Executive summary The study presents a brief overview of Tele-working. Sustainable development is a major concern of the organizations in Australia. Although Tele-working reduces the emission reduces the emission of the green house gases and results in sustainable development for the organization, it faces various challenges. The long term survival of the organization will be possible if it practices sustainability. The study presents the various challenges regarding teleworking in terms of social factors, economic factors, legal and ethical factors. Lack of motivation of the employees is a major factor affecting the employees. The employees suffer from isolation. This makes them unproductive. Economically it is beneficial for the organization to practice sustainability. But there are various ethical issues concerning sustainability as it reduces the security of data. The legislation in Australia is favorable towards sustainability. It is imperative for the organization to practice sustainability as i t will reduce the environmental concerns. There are finite resources which have to be used in an efficient way. There has to be efficient allocation of the resources. In the present report Tele working has been studied with respect to Saigon Tech. It is an outsourcing company that provides IT solutions to various small, medium sized and large organizations. There are various challenges faced by the organization in implementing Teleworking. Among the various challenges, monitoring the performance of the employees has been the major challenge. This results in reduction of the growth of the organization. The communication between the employees and the supervisors has to be increased in order make Teleworking successful. This will ensure long term profitability of the organization. The profitability of the organization will not be affected. The management team can communicate with the employees via skype or any other video conferencing tool. Introduction Teleworking is an arrangement of work in which the employees do not travel to a central place of work. A person engaged in teleworking is known as teleworker. It is often known as home sourced or working from home. It has been found from the Reuters poll that one amongst the five workers around the globe particularly employees of Asia, Latin America and Middle East use teleworking frequently as a medium to accomplish their work (Reaney, 2015). At least 10% of the employees work from home on an everyday basis. Teleworking is a technology assisted work that is conducted at a place remotely located from the office. The benefits of teleworking are the reduction of the time for commuting. Teleworking can be conducted inside the home via broadband connection, phone or using computer. The latest issues that has been published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics ( ABS) Business Use of Information Technology (BUIT) survey more than one third of the micro business uses internet to enable th e staff to conduct work from home. Teleworking in Australia has increased 8% every year. More than 75% of the staff members use internet service to work from home (Department of Communications, 2015). Saigon Tech is a software development company from Sydney. It has an offshore development centre in Vietnam. The company is involved in providing digital business outsourcing solutions to businesses which are small, medium sized or large. They also provide services to Government agencies. The software company has a team of qualified designers and software developers who provide high quality and cost effective outsource based software solutions to the clients. The company exists in Australia since it is mature market which demands innovation. The country has evolved from the traditional form of outsourcing. The outsourcing deals of the country are in alignment with the strategic expansion goals of the country. The software company has build up offshore dedicated teams in Russia, New Zealand and Australia. Saigon Tech software has a high level of experience in the field of designing and development of latest web based applications that are available in the market. They develop the most advanced technologies that are available in the market. They are one of the most trusted software solution providing organization (Saigon Tech Australia, a Sydney, Australia Software/Web Development Company, 2013). Teleworking and the challenges faced by the organization and the teleworkers Saigon Tech has been able to conduct the work in a flexible manner after implementing teleworking. They can run the business in a flexible way rather than a traditional way. The nature of labour work force in the organization can be altered by implementing Tele-working ( Lui et al., 2012). A survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that one third of the business houses in Australia use Tele-working in their organization. The organization has to adopt the principle of diversity at workplace for the development of sustainability at workplace. The activity at workplace can be improved by the participation of all the employees via Telework. Adoption of Tele-working will help to develop the skills and the view point of the employees at Saigon Tech. Tele working is beneficial for the organization to change its traditional structure of business. But Tele-working has been posed with several challenges. From the organizational perspective , an employee feels isolated and uncomfortable due to informal communication. They do not get social support at home which is available at the organization. The employees engaged in Tele-working suffer from high rate of turnover; high levels of discomfort and commitment are the major reasons behind the isolation of the employees. The employees suffer from lack of support of the supervisors and top management level. This creates high rate of dissatisfaction among the employees which creates high rate of employee turnover. Tele-working provides job satisfaction to the employees but it does not provide growth opportunities to the employees which is available at the organizational level. However there are various media technologies via which the employees can directly communicate with their supervisor s and the top level of management. They can use Facebook , Linkedin , Skype to communicate with their supervisors. The challenges as well as the potential benefits of Teleworking can be described as follows Social factors The motivational factors that help an employee to be productive at workplace can be explained by the social factors. Tele-working results in isolation which is unproductive (Ryan, 2013). Isolation leads to distraction of the employees and they become unproductive. It is hard to get clients who are self motivated. Tele-working can be implemented with better control on the employees. This will lead to potential outcome from the employees. There is lack of career certainty among the employees. There is low growth in the career for the employees working from home (Infostructures.com, 2015). Economic factors Tele-working has potential impact on the business. New opportunities have spurred up for the business to reduce their overhead burden and increase the productivity of the organizations by improvement of the skills and restructuring of the business (verizonenterprise.com, 2015). The business can focus of devising strategies to address the target market in a better way. The Tele-working of the employees has increased drastically by the implementation of Tele-working system. It will benefit Saigon Tech (Newswise.com, 2015). Ethical factors Ethics is important for the long term survival of the organization. The ethical decision making of the organization is under the guideline of several philosophies. The ethics of the Tele-working activities are made according to the ACS code of conduct. The employees will be dedicated to their work and adhere to the corporate behavior. It can meet to the requirements of the management (di-ve - content matters, 2015). Legal - The State Legislation and the commonwealth has potential impact on Tele working. The company will be able to increase its flexibility by the implementation of the legislation. Saigon Tech will be able to increase its work activity (Goudreau, 2011). The health and process of safety within the organization can be regulated by the implementation of the legislation that reinforces WHS in Saigon Tech (Healy, 2012). Critical review of Tele-working with respect to reduction of green house gases Sustainable development can be defined as the development that meets the present needs without compromising with the capability of the future generations in order to meet their needs (Rogers, Jalal and Boyd, 2008). It may be defined as a road map via which sustainability can be achieved by the organization (Pearce, Markandya and Barbier, 1997). This will help to preserve the finite resources that are necessary to fulfil the requirements of the future (Baker, 2006). This will continue to meet the need of the human beings without undermining the natural biotic system. Sustainability is the major reason behind implementing Tele-working. The global companies implement Tele-working for create a sustainable working environment (Sorensen, 2010). The major benefit of Tele-working is that it helps to create an environment that will induct positive impact. Carbon credit policy has been implemented which has motivated the employees to implement a culture of Tele-working (Carbontrust.com, 2014). The companies has to adopt a clear framework for the implementation of Tele-working, otherwise it will have adverse effect on the profitability of the business. However, Tele-working can be viewed from two different aspects. It can be viewed from the aspect of the company or it can be viewed from the aspect of the employee. The critical review of Tele-working will done based on the aspect of the company or the aspect of the employee (Davies, Fahy and Rau, n.d.). Critical review of Tele-working from the perspective of the Company Tele-working has reduced the operational cost of the organization. An operational framework has been developed by the companies in order to minimize the cost of operation. But implementation of such operational framework is a costly affair for the companies. The companies have to make an high investment at the initial level for the infrastructural development. Tele-working helps in the creation of a working environment which is interrupting. The implementation of Tele-working makes the working creates a virtual working environment which becomes difficult to monitor. Tele-working reduces the stress level at workplace. This creates an intrinsic motivation. The company will be able to get good performance from the employees. However the increase in performance of the employees by the implementation of Tele-working has been argued as there is risk of data security. The rate of the retention of the organization reduces with the implementation of Tele-working. The company can provide flexi ble hours of working to the employees. Tele-working can provide flexible hours of working only in the service industry (Charter and Tischner, 2001). Critical review of Tele-working from the perspective of the Employees Tele-working has several benefits as it helps in the reduction of the emission of the green house gases. With the implementation of Tele-working the organization does not have to spend on infrastructure. Green house gas is emitted from the lights used in the organization, installation of AC emits green house gases, green house gas is released from Television and computer system (HarmaajaÃÅ'ˆrvi, Heinonen and Lahti, 2004). Tele-working will reduce the emission of green house gases as the additional investment on the equipments required in an organization will reduce. As Tele-working is implemented in the organization, less energy is used in the organizations. The organization can reduce the size of the facility (Ezendu, 2014). This will save power to a considerable extent and the green house gas emission will be curtailed (Infostructures.com, 2015). The employees are benefitted from Tele-working. It helps the employees to spend time with their family members. However spending qua lity time with the members of the family is not considered as a sustainable option by the organization as it reduces the profitability of the organization. Extrinsic motivation to the employees will help them become productive at home. Tele-working reduces the level of stress of the employees. Conclusion The report enlightens the overall concept of Tele-working. The critical review on Tele-working was provided by selecting an organization. Saigon Tech was chosen as the organization. It provides IT solution to other companies. It is an outsourcing organization. However the implementation of Tele-working in the organization posed the organization with several challenges. There are various risks involved in implementing Tele-working. It reduces the market value of the organization. Tele-working is implemented in Saigon Tech to provide software solutions to the clients. Various types of media has to be used by the organization like skype , voice technologies to communicate with the employees working from home. There are various challenges faced by the Tele-workers working from home. The employees suffer from isolation as a result of Tele-working. This creates mistrust among the employees. The company will be able to grow if there is trust among the employees. Sustainability of the organization will also develop from trust. But Tele-working reduces the trust among the employees. Lack of visibility is another major challenge of Tele-working. The employees working from home are unable to understand the vision and mission of the organization. The goals of the organization are not clear to the employees. This creates a gap between the employees and the organization which reduces the level of trust of the employees. The employees are unable to work as a team. The Tele-workers finds complexity to balance between the professional lives and their personal lives. It has been seen that the Tele-workers tend to work extra hours to show their productivity. This tends to overburden the employees. Lack of communication between the employees and the supervisors results in miscommunication between them. The employees are overburdening themselves which has created a blurred line between the personal and professional life of the employees. Working from home reduces the distractions of office. There is lack of commute time. But the Tele-workers are faced with other challenges at home. There are various disturbances at home. This reduces the productivity of the Tele-workers. It has been seen that the employees working at the organization tend to be more productive than the Tele-workers as the Tele-workers lack motivation at home. The organization is unable to motivate the employees with external motivating factors. Lack of visibility and trust for the organization result in high rate of employee turnover. In order to make the Tele-working successful, an organization has to start open communication channels with the organization. This will be successful by the participation of the employees and the higher management team of the organization. The tele-workers have to provide continuous feedback to their supervisors about the various problems faced by them so that their issues can be sorted by the organization. This will ma ke Tele-working successful for an organization. As there are various benefits of Tele-working like reduction of the green house gases by saving energy, it must be successfully implemented in the organization. It will help to recover the issues of green house gases of Saigon tech. The organization will be able to make a successful move towards sustainability. The value of the organization will maximize in front of the stakeholders. The organization will be able to make profit as it will have an increased value. Tele working will be a successful drive of the organization. It will ensure long term growth of the organization. Recommendations Telework is confronting a scope of difficulties which is restraining its presentation. The inhibitory components are diminishing the eagerness among the representatives of the association to present telework. However keeping in mind the end goal to conquer the difficulties in regards to presentation of telework , the accompanying suggestions can be given. Lack of technical feasibility - One of the real concerns influencing the execution of telework is lack of technical feasibility. The business must be patient to conquer the issue. The business won't have the capacity to defeat the issue in transient premise. Development can take care of the issues identified with specialized possibility and expand the extent of telework. The instability in fact can be evacuated by the take off of NBN in future. Ideal telework can be given by utilizing covering fiber, satellites and altered remote. It will help fast and a dependable telework. The endeavors to build the rate of the web by utilizing altered, satellite and remote portable systems have been the most dependable choices. They have never been intended for wide groups. Trust of the workers There is absence of backing from the representatives towards the presentation of telework. As per the workers, the presentation of telework will diminish the capacity of the representatives to buckle down as they won't be under consistent visual supervision. They may confront different diversions at home which may hinder their work process. The concerns of the bosses with respect to the different diversions at home can be overcome by guaranteeing that the representative s will work with same level of inspiration as they work in office and the level of preoccupation at home will be minimized. The execution of the staff parts will be observed by new measures. There are different associations that backing telework. For instance Telework Australia advances telework. A different set up for home office has been produced using which the representatives can work. This will minimize the preoccupation of the specialists. The physical partitions will be between the laborer and the different redirections at working environment. The different diversions at home are TV or the parts from the gang. In any case a different home office will make an obstruction between the different preoccupations. The staff can be checked remotely by receiving different techniques to screen the representatives. The workers can be observed by the measure of time used by the staff parts at the work area of the home office. The execution of the workers will be checked as opposed to the measure of hours that has been worked by the representatives. This will give better data to the supervisory group. The workers can speak with the managers or the associates live by utilizing Skype. Skype will serve as a medium for vis--vis collaboration between the worker and the administration. There is need for self discipline and motivation in a virtual office. The employees have to be focused in order to accomplish their job successfully. There are some employees who gain maximum satisfaction working independently. But there must be regular interaction between the employees and the supervisors. This will help the organization discuss their potential issues. The manager supervising the teleworkers has to bear huge responsibility. It can be challenging for the managers to solve the issues. 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